exploring past visions of possible futures

What I love the most about the film 2001 was its main theme which was represented by a massive monolithic alien object. The monolithic object was show three times throughout the film. Every time the monolith was show, an eventful human millstone in evolution took place. The first appearance of the monolith represented the change of ape to man representing human past. Second was man’s accomplishment of traveling to the moon. This represented present humans. Third was man’s ability to travel distant planet, or possibly even intergalactic travel. This represented human future. The monolith was found floating by Jupiter. The movie showed a great representation of human evolution. Using the strange monolithic object as a means of symbolizing human evolution made it even more interesting and mysterious.

A truly awkward event in to novel Dawn was when Jdahya performed the Onokali mating ritual on both Lilith and Joseph for the first time.

It was Joseph’s second time of ever seeing the alien creature. Jdahya presented itself to Joseph so he could get use to Jdahya’s grotesque appearance. At this point Jdahya’s goal was to get Joseph to trust it enough to change and improve his body chemistry. In order to do so, Jdahya had to drug him which made him semi-unconscious.

During Joseph’s semi-unconscious state, for some odd reason Jdahya thought it was okay to perform the trio mating ritual with Lilith and Joseph without Joseph’s consent. Lilith was okay with it since she had already performed this alone with Jdahya, but imagine the awkwardness Joseph must of felt when Jdahya’s sexual organs penetrated his skin. First of all this mating ritual involves 3 sexes instead of the usual human 2. Second, the emotional feelings Joseph was receiving were unnatural to humans. Third, this is Joseph’s second time of ever seeing the alien. He doesn’t even know Jdahya well enough to even consider this ritual as a possibility. In a way it seemed almost as it were rape from my perspective.

“Your children will know us, Lilith. You never will.” – Kahguyaht (Page 111)

When Kahguyaht said “you never will” It is implying that Lilith will never truly understand the Onakali (aliens) both physically nor mentally. Lilith does not have the sensory organs which the aliens posses. Their organs let them experience unimaginable sensations which we would never be able to experience nor understand. In a way it’s as trying to envision the 4th dimension. The 4th dimension is not something you can see, hear or touch. It is a something we cannot experience because we are bounded to own 3 dimension body and world. Scientist have an idea of what this phenomena is but, no one could truly understand the 4th dimension.

When it stated ” Your children will know us” it is implying that Lilith’s children will be genetically tampered with which will allow them to have sensory organs that are similar to the aliens. This is foreshadowing what will be of humans in the future. They will be a hybrid creature with traits of both alien and human. In a sense, the pureness of a human will be lost. When Kahguyaht stated this, Lilith said nothin. She has accepted her people’s faith and is no longer going against the aliens. Then again she never had a choice. It’s either agree with the aliens or be but back into suspended animation until she agrees.

Throughout the entire novel, humans never had to option to leave to Earth without being experimented on and genetically altered first. The Onakali believe that tampering with the humans will increase their chance for survival. The Onakali’s intensions are positive, but in doing so, it ripped the freedom right out of humanity.

The comparison of how aliens treat humans vs. how humans treat animals

In the novel Dawn, alien Jdahya has been helping Lilith recover from what seems to be a nuclear war on earth. He has brought her among his ship and has been trying its best efforts to encourage her wellbeing. At first Lilith was trapped in a white boxed room without windows similar to a cage in which we would keep an animal. Jdahya along with other of his kind observed her intensely without Lilith even knowing that she was captured by aliens. The aliens did not tell her where she was because they knew that Lilith would be overwhelmed. Lilith was suffering in her caged box for two “awakened” years. Loneliness cause insanity and depression and the aliens were well of that. They wanted to wait for the right moment to introduce themselves. When Jdahya finally introduced himself and told her everything, Lilith became furious at the fact that no one told her anything about why she was in her box. Jdahya countered her a aggression with the simple term, “It was for your own good.” Similarly, that is what we do to animals. Being that we are more intelligent than animals, we do things to them that they don’t understand that may harm them now but will help them in the long-run. For example, giving a dog a shot for rabies. The dog is unwilling to take the shot but we forcefully give it to it because it’s for his own good. Lilith was fed regularly with plain tasting, colorless, yet nutritional food. Lilith detested it and wish she had something better tasting. Again this food was given to increase her health. We do the same to our pets. I’m sure that our pets hate eating the same repetitive foods over and over again but, we feed it to them because it increases there overall health. In conclusion, the aliens are treating the humans as animal. They are observing and experimenting with them.

Why?” Rick said. “Why should I do it? I’ll quit my job and emigrate.”The old man said, “You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.”

I found this conversation interesting yet puzzling. How does the basic condition of life require violating one’s own identity? Mercer is saying that all life must at some point do this. (It doesn’t make sense to acknowledge this statement in relation to animals since they lack the ability to develop a complex identity in which they can violate. Maybe he is pertaining to only humans.) Nevertheless, it is still an abstract statement. This quote seems to be more of a person’s opinion rather than a statement from a higher truth which Mercer is suppose to represent. I believe that Mercer is in fact the author’s gateway into the book. In other words, his personal perspective of the storyline and also the real world.

I believe his statement to be true to a certain extent. In modern day earth most people, including myself, have to violate our own identity at some point. Out of my experience, I had to violate my identity because of a job which is exactly the same reason why Deckard did so also. Violating one’s identity is a “curse” as stated by Mercer, but this does not necessarily have to always be true. This “curse” only exists in capitalistic environments where people go out of their way to make money, which corresponds to violating ones identity due to an occupation. It seems that this is increasing becoming the case as the thirst for money increases. But who’s to say that all humans have to act in accordance to this and more importantly how does the entire universe revolve around this statement. What if a human is forced to live in a primitive state, such as surviving in an island, where an occupation isn’t required. Wouldn’t this Mercer’s statement be false?

“Suppose people started afresh on a new world (how that ran through his mind ever since Dr. Fastolfe had put it there); suppose Bentley, for instance, were to leave Earth; could he get so he didn’t mind working and living alongside robots? Why not? The Spacers themselves did it.” –Elijah

The quote stated above is particularly significant in the novel caves of steel. Elijah, a character from the novel Caves of Steel, was at one point closed minded about the idea of living along side with robots. He absolutely hated robots and never even considered the benefits of using robots. It is also important to note that hatred toward robots was a stereotypical thought within Elijah’s society. Earlier, Dr. Fastolfe a character which lives alongside robots had told him otherwise. Dr. Fastolfe carefully explained to Elijah how robots can in fact aid human life. With one simple, yet intelligent conversation, Dr. Fastolfe had managed to change Elijah’s stubborn aspects of robots. If a similar scene were to occur in the present dealing with a similar scenario, would it also be easy to persuade a person with stereotypical thoughts? I think it’s possible. It’s actually real easy to do so. The fact the almost everyone in Elijah’s society hated robots, is similar to how the media in present day society can persuade the masses into thinking and living a certain type of way. When a person is told something from a more logical aspect, they tend to acknowledge and agree. Maybe the author of this novel was trying to tell us that we should be more open minded and knowledgeable based off of this scene.

The society within Caves of Steel and present day society are physically different in various ways. As I picture the scene of Caves of Steel, I image a dark depressing enclosed city without windows or sunlight. It’s a clear separation of nature from the city. There are no trees or greenery. It is literally a cave made of steel. It is a complete artificial society.

In comparison to our society, we are nothing like that. I believe that man will always try to incorporate nature within their societies. As we can see today, our cities are filled with natural elements, such as parks, plazas and trees. Our cities are never enclosed spaces, as we prefer we

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The OpenLab at City Tech:A place to learn, work, and share

The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at New York City College of Technology (NYCCT), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.